In December 2022, Congress enacted groundbreaking legislation as part of the SECURE 2.0 Act codifying an opportunity for employers to provide matching contributions within a tax-qualified retirement plan based on their employees’ qualified student loan payments outside the plan. This On the Subject discusses the SECURE 2.0 student loan benefit and other employer options for providing tax-advantaged benefits to employees based on student loan payments. It also examines the open questions and current implementation challenges for sponsors of 401(k) and 403(b) plans hoping to implement the student loan benefit.
Student loan debt is set once again to impact millions of American workers. Fortunately, starting next year, employers will have new ways to help employees navigate student loan debt. Provisions of the SECURE 2.0 Act will allow employers to provide employer-matching contributions based on their employees’ qualified student loan repayments outside the plan.
In this webinar, McDermott’s Jeffrey M. Holdvogt and Teal N. Trujillo were joined by Tom Robertson C(k)P® of Graystone Consulting for a discussion exploring how organizations can provide this exciting new benefit to their workforces and leverage this important tool to increase employee satisfaction and retention.
Topics included:
Reasons why your organization should consider student loan debt/repayment benefits
Options available to employers to provide tax-advantaged benefits related to student loan debt and repayment
Key aspects of the SECURE 2.0 Act related to student loan repayment benefits as part of an employee retirement plan
Questions, challenges and tips for employers implementing a SECURE 2.0 student loan benefit in their retirement plans
Following the US Supreme Court’s rejection of substantial portions of the Biden administration’s plans for student loan debt relief, and with the end of the student loan repayment moratorium in sight, student loan debt is set once again to impact millions of American workers. Fortunately, starting next year, employers will have new ways to help employees navigate student loan debt. Provisions of the SECURE 2.0 Act will allow employers to provide employer-matching contributions based on their employees’ qualified student loan repayments outside the plan.
On September 12, 2023, join McDermott Will & Emery lawyers Jeffrey M. Holdvogt and Teal N. Trujillo as well as Tom Robertson C(k)P® of Graystone Consulting for a live webinar exploring how your organization can provide this exciting new benefit to your workforce and leverage it to increase employee satisfaction and retention.
Covered topics will include:
Reasons why your organization should consider student loan debt/repayment benefits
Options available to employers to provide tax-advantaged benefits related to student loan debt and repayment
Key aspects of the SECURE 2.0 Act related to student loan repayment benefits as part of an employee retirement plan
Questions, challenges and tips for employers implementing a SECURE 2.0 student loan benefit in their retirement plans
On August 25, 2023, the Internal Revenue Service announced an administrative transition period that effectively delays the deadline for adding Roth catch-up contributions under the SECURE 2.0 Act until at least 2026. Specifically, the announcement provides that, until 2026, catch-up contributions will satisfy the requirements under SECURE 2.0, even if the contributions made for high-wage earners (i.e., those making more than $145,000 from their employer in the prior year) are not designated as Roth contributions.
Nearly all employers offer eligible participants the opportunity to make additional catch-up contributions to their retirement plans. However, beginning in 2025, the SECURE 2.0 Act makes so-called “super-catch-up contributions” available to certain employees. Adding this new feature will require employers and their service providers to develop new processes to monitor various ages and limits and to audit that information to ensure it is properly applied.
In an open letter to Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen and IRS Commissioner Daniel Werfel, congressional leaders identified several technical errors in the SECURE 2.0 Act that they intend to correct. Although the letter indicates that Congress intends to correct these technical errors and ambiguities in the legislation, it does not address the timetable for doing so.
Section 603 of the SECURE 2.0 Act requires catch-up contributions made by certain high-wage earners to be made on a Roth basis beginning in 2024. But it also contains one of the most talked about technical errors in the legislation, one that resulted in Congress eliminating all catch-up contributions—for everyone. Not surprisingly, that isn’t quite what Congress had in mind.
The Internal Revenue Service’s (IRS) Employee Plans Compliance Resolution System (EPCRS) allows employers to correct errors involving the maintenance and operation of tax-qualified retirement plans. The correction programs and options that make up EPCRS have, until now, been established exclusively in a series of IRS notices and revenue procedures dating back more than 30 years. However, as part of the SECURE 2.0 Act, Congress took it upon itself to radically expand EPCRS to allow employers to self-correct most inadvertent failures to comply with the tax-qualification rules under the Internal Revenue Code.
This Special Report discusses the history behind the creation of EPCRS, outlines some of its key features, and highlights how the growth and expansion of this program continues to improve IRS enforcement of tax-qualified plan rules by encouraging plan sponsors to establish practices and procedures designed to ensure compliance, thereby avoiding the harsh tax penalties of plan disqualification.
The SECURE 2.0 Act requires participants who earned more than $145,000 in FICA wages in the prior year from their current employer to make all catch-up contributions on a Roth basis beginning in 2024. For many employers, the primary concern is how to integrate the new rule with how payroll deductions for catch-up contributions are processed and then transmitted to plan recordkeepers.
Retirement plans often apply (and in some cases are required to use) multiple definitions of wages or compensation for various plan purposes. Given this complexity, failures to follow a plan’s definition of compensation are one of the most common issues experienced by retirement plan sponsors. Unfortunately, as drafted, the SECURE 2.0 Act only adds to that complexity.
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